If we stop seeking, we are no longer on the way. Faith seeking understanding has then turned into “belief that understands.” It then closes down the very root of quaerens, from which come both question and quest. Speaking the divine wisdom in a mystery, theology remains a work of human speech. Theology is not the same as faith or belief, but a disciplined and relational reflection upon them. God calls, but we are responsible for what we call “God”. And God may be calling us to that very responsibility! — Catherine Keller

The life of faith is a rhythmic movement aimed towards the dynamic, eschatological horizon painted before us by the resurrected Christ, and theology is the disciplined and relational reflection upon this motion, which moves us from one moment of becoming to another, and another . . . Theology is fides quaerens intellectum – faith seeking understanding – and it must never come to a halt; it must never be thought of as finished or something that we can possess, but should always be shaped by a radical openness to that which is at hand. The sober beings who feel armed against passion and fantasy and who advocates absolutism misunderstands this notion since they have reduced the theological discourse to the strict confines of their anthropocentric and static dualism where the relationality and multiplicity of creation is denied, where nothing is assumed to be concealed from the human eye and where every truth claim depends on its binary opposite. One of the sad consequences of such an irresponsible and infantile understanding of theology is religious movements that primarily defines themselves and their gods as negations of their Others, and who thus ironically allows their foundational concepts and values to be defined by the ones they react against.

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As I have participated in conversations with fellow Christians over the years, it has become strikingly obvious to me that the apparent lack of stability both in nature and within our languages has left people disillusioned. As a consequence many has reacted against the threat of unknowing by naively returning to foundationalistic practices, undergirded by belief in ones own understanding as absolute truth. Although this is unfortunate, it comes as no surprise since a firm ground to stand on is deeply sought after by many in a chaotic world where everything seem to be up for grabs. In this post I will try to develop some thoughts on how this infantile Christianity, although it probably is a necessary step in our development, must be left behind in order for us to receive the nourishment, which is given to us in the shape of ‘solid food’ [1 Cor 3].

As human beings we have a need to cut the underlying reality – the Real – into various concepts. This is a natural and necessary practice since it creates possibilities to perceive the world as ordered, the past as understandable, the future as somewhat predictable and so on. Without these practices of conceptualizing and ordering we simply could not function in everyday life. There is a real problem lurking under the surface though, quite literally, because if we forget that humans within history has created our concepts and the ways we order them, then we also forget the excess of meaning and the endless possibilities hidden and suppressed beneath the face of the deep.

The issue I want to address is not that we receive a conceptual understanding from our elders, that some of us creates new concepts which we then collectively pass on to future generations or that the sense of our concepts shifts in each moment of becoming. What I would like for us to direct our attention towards is rather the forgetfulness that becomes apparent when we begin to see our concepts as static universals, and I would in particular want to relate this discussion to the discourse of theology.

Expressing thoughts about God is always a dangerous endeavour since every word must be weighed carefully in order for us to say something of value while avoiding the idolatrous practice of elevating the particular to the level of the universal. Idol towers, whether they are made of bricks or words, are often attractive because of their reductive simplicity which makes that one expresses or adores comprehensible, but as with many of the great monuments of the world – the Chinese Wall, the Pyramids, Manhattan, etc., there lies thousands of silenced voices beneath the ground on which they are built. The idolatrous is irresponsible, self-serving and closed minded, static, dualistic and oppressive. It strives to appear as brave and proud but is actually shaped by its fears since it is afraid of the endless opportunities that reside beneath its frozen surface of the sea of possibilities. Consequently the idolatrous life depends heavily on the suppressing of differences and it desires to overtake rather than embrace the Other. It is further deeply competitive and its emphasis on being victorious allows for violence to define what it means to love.

In contrast to the idol there is the icon, which in Jean-Luc Marion’s insightful words ‘recognizes no other measure than its own and infinite excessiveness´. He goes on by saying that ‘whereas the idol measures the divine to the scope of the gaze of he who then sculpts it, the icon accords in the visible only a face whose invisibility is given all the more to be envisaged that its revelation offers an abyss that the eyes of men never finish probing’. From this follows that the function of the idol is to validate ones own being in the world by allowing for our particular belongings – creed, race, nationality, and so on – to be seen as the universal meaning of existence. Is this deep human longing not what Nietzsche so powerfully gave voice to when he said: ‘If there were gods, how could I bear not to be a god?’ Idolatrous faith is thus a conceptual understanding of God that is confined by the limits created by ones own being in the world and I therefore believe that we are wise to join Meister Eckhart in his humble prayer; ‘God, rid me of God’.

To be rid of God is to live with one’s face unveiled, not in order to reach a universal understanding of God, nor of the world, but so that we may continuously probe the bottomless depth in that which is visible to our eyes:

And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image [eikōn] from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. [2 Cor 3.18]

The aim of the theological discourse is to be transformed by our participation in the divine life – to become icons of God for the world to see, from one degree of glory to another, in an endless flow of divine love. The life of faith is thus a movement and we must be careful not to rush ahead, rather we should want to find ourselves in a rhythm where the divine speaks through our lives and where our actions and words becomes creative ways of expressing that which has been spoken to us. We should therefore allow for the events of divine revelation to function as a hammer that disrupt our motion through life by cracking the shells of the concepts that we have received and with which we have ordered the world and used in our attempts to speak of God.

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In my previous post I made the claim that truth is a way of being in the world and therefore that it is relational, dynamic and that it only can be articulated when the Other is looked upon as our beloved. For many people such a statement is seemingly hard to accept since it implicitly makes modernistic foundationalism impossible and the consequence is that people like myself are often ostracized because of our apparent relativism. In conversations I am accordingly faced with the question whether it is absolutely true that truth is not absolute. It is a tricky one, or so it seems, until one realize that it implies that truth, humanly speaking, is to be understood in theoretical and absolute terms. In other words, the question contains the underlying assumption that my understanding of truth must be judged from a perspective I adamantly denies any validity.

The foundationalists’ belief in static, absolute truth is not only erroneous, it also carries a very real potential of becoming oppressive since its advocates’ has elevated their own, particular perspectives to the level of universality while ignoring the perspective of the Other. In theological language this claim of a God’s eye view of the world is in my opinion best described as idolatrous.

To be clear, I am not accepting the critique of my understanding as relativistic. It is not relativistic; it is relational.

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Truth as troth [loyal or pledged faithfulness] has to be underwritten by love: the proclamation of faith is an act of betrothal where one affiances oneself to another and where the other is one’s fiancé. This recalls the famous line of thinking from 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul insists that if faith is not underwritten by love, then ‘I’m a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal’ (1 Cor 13.1). — Simon Critchley

Speaking truth should not be understood as simply expressing that which is since nothing simply is and because Truth, humanly speaking, is not. Truth in the Christian sense always proceeds from faith, which is born out of loving relationships. Truth is therefore never static but dynamic; it moves with us from one moment of becoming to the next and it cannot be comprehended from the perspective of the solitary individual. Without love we are simply noisy gongs and our truth is empty and shallow. Truth is a way of being in the world and it is always relational, interdependent and constantly changing. Truth can thus only be articulated when the Other is looked upon as our beloved, hence Christ who emptied himself and walked faithfully to the cross for the sake of the world can be said to be the way, the truth and the life (John 14.6). His earthly deed is the ultimate expression of truth as a way of being in the world – a way of life. Christ should therefore not be understood as a first principle but as the truly human one whom we enter into relationship with by participating in his death and his resurrection. As this relationship is continuously confirmed through our participation in the Eucharist we continue to be shaped by his love and resurrection that points towards the universal resurrection, which is our eschatological hope. Further, when the Bible speaks about salvation, what is referred to is not some form of Gnostic escape from the world, rather it is an invitation, a calling, to participate in this eschatological future, or as we usually refer to it; the kingdom of God. When Jesus answered Thomas’ question ‘how can we know the way?’ (John 14.5), he therefore did not reveal some hidden path from earth to heaven, rather he unveiled that the kingdom of heaven – the world which is to come – is at hand. Consequently we pray ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’ (Matt 6.10).

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During the past centuries the Christian faith has been under attack by its younger, secular brothers. Brilliant people – not seldom sons of priests – has done their best to diminish the Christian truth claims and I guess we have to admit that they have been quite successful. Perhaps it is ironic that these heretical thinkers today are spoken of as intellectual giants even within some rooms of our churches but I do not find that particularly problematic. In a way I think that they have helped the church to purify itself and its doctrines. Although I think we are wise not to dismiss these critics I believe that it is important for us not to be ruled by them either. There are many aspects to this issue and I will not even attempt to mention them all, but I would like to raise one that I believe might be important within some movements in the contemporary church.

I consider it to be correct to assert that there is a trend among some groups of Christians to fear hope. It is almost as if they are afraid that the gospel truly is good news. The main reason for this is in my experience the various secular explanations of faith as a defence mechanism against our existential fears and anxieties. People are simply afraid to see hope as part of their faith since that would make them easy targets for this critique. It is understandable that these brothers and sisters do not want to appear as naive in their faith but my claim is that it is irrational even to fear this critique since such fears requires that you look upon religious faith from a perspective that does not allow for hope in the first place.

I think that much good has been said about our need to reject the deus ex machina, onto-theo-logy and so on, but I do not think that we therefore should seek for a God that offers us no hope and I do not think that the older sibling should always serve the younger. As Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks points out, the book of Genesis provides us with plenty of stories about feuds between brothers and on the surface they all tell us that the older should be ruled by the younger. However, in all these stories – Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers – there is a counter narrative that leads us to a place of reconciliation and brotherly love.

It will always be tempting to allow the younger brother to rule over the older. The various secular strands of the Western tradition are all such brothers. But the biblical story is not about replacing the older with the younger, it is about reconciliation. That is our ultimate hope and I’m not willing to give it up simply to avoid groundless accusations of being naive.

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As Christians we are called to let the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus and as I explained in my previous post I believe this means that Christian ethics must reject the dualism inherently present in the separation between good and evil. Christian ethics should not concern itself with the distinguishing between good and evil, rather its subject matter is our participation in the Kingdom of God. Now we are at the core of the Christian life and I would like for us to move this discussion back to the cross and our participation in the death of Christ Jesus.

My claim is that the life we experience as a result of our participation in the death of Christ is a life characterized by a communal identity, which gives birth to subjectivity within itself. In other words, to die with Christ means that we die away from a life apart from God, outside God, and this death is what must occur for the resurrected life within the Body of Christ to be attainable. To share in the death of Christ therefore signifies a move away from having our hearts turned upon themselves towards a truly human life in which we know all things in God and God in all things.

Unfortunately this is rarely spoken of within our churches. Rather we are all too often being told that becoming a Christian means that our individual needs will be taken care of, that our fears and anxieties will go away, that we will go to heaven when we die, and so on. Such understandings totally miss the point because the essence of such beliefs is that if we become Christians the world and God will adjust to us. We are thus still the main character within our particular narratives and our lives apart from God remain untouched. Although such believes might prove to be therapeutic they do not move us closer to knowing our true origin and they should therefore be rejected.

To be clear, my understanding that participation in the death of Christ implies that we die away from ourselves does not mean that we cease to exist as individuals. Hence I am not preaching the end of subjectivity; rather I proclaim that true humanity can only exist within a communal identity, namely the body of Christ. When we speak about the Church we should therefore avoid such understandings that describes it as individuals coming together, rather our individuality is a result of being reborn within the Church. Our primary identity is thus a communal identity within the Body of Christ in which God is known as our true origin.

Hence, when Christ proclaimed ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near’, this is the life he invited us to become part of. To be sure, all this must be interpreted eschatologically. Christ made the future present and his life, death and resurrection is therefore a testimony that we will all one day be reconciled with God, each other and the whole of creation. The eschatological vision of a universal reconciliation made known through God’s raising of Christ is therefore a moment in time where the distinctions between past, present and future are dissolved and where the worldly division between individual and communal existence is deconstructed.

Consequently, when Christ preached that we are to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, he was not imposing an impossible ethical demand on our lives, rather he was asking us to let the same mind be in us that was in him. He was asking us to perceive God in everyone and everyone in God. His eschatological vision was a fully reconciled world and his claim was that this future is available now. Hence, ‘the kingdom of heaven has come near’. What arises from such an understanding is a prophetic Christianity that unveils the sins of the world. Our love is thus judgmental, but it does not condemn for eternity, rather it points to the universal reconciliation of everything in heaven and on earth. Our love is therefore patient and kind, it does not envy or boast, it is neither proud nor rude, it is not easily angered and it keeps no record of wrongs. This is all possible because of the radical embrace of Christ Jesus who loved us first so that God can live in us and we in God. We therefore love because he first loved us and embrace the other because he first embraced us.

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. [1 John 4.15-21]

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. [1 John 3.16]

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To ask whether God is necessary is a very common question. I know that I began my previous post by saying the same thing but today I would like to revisit this question with a different perspective in mind. When speaking about who God is I believe that it is problematic to assume that God is a necessary being since the necessary God will always be confined by human reason. Hence I critiqued this theological understanding and said that it is idolatrous and dangerous, the latter since the common image of God ultimately will be that of the ones in power.

To move this discussion forward I would like to use a famous quote that Sartre assigned to Dostojevskij, namely that ‘if there is no God then everything is permitted’. It is a seemingly reasonable statement since if human morality is all we have then moral values cannot be conceived as anything but subjective human opinions and the result is a world of moral relativism. Several apologists find this to be an extremely sexy argument for the existence of God since they believe that objective moral values necessarily exist. Clearly they have not paid much attention to Nietzsche. However, as Lacan critically retorted, ‘if there is a God, then everything is permitted’. Lacan thus seems to share my concern about the necessary God since his critique was directed against them who use God to justify their own immoral and oppressive actions. Such thinking is predominantly shaped by what is referred to as historical millenarianism but it is present also in other theological misreadings of the biblical texts.

Should we then conclude that everything is permitted? To give a response to this question I would like for us to turn towards the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who wrote in the posthumously published book Ethik that

The knowledge of good and evil seems to be the aim of all ethical reflection. The first task of Christian ethics is to invalidate this knowledge. In launching this attack on the underlying assumptions of all other ethics, Christian ethics stands so completely alone that it becomes questionable whether there is any purpose in speaking of Christian ethics at all. But if one does so notwithstanding, that can only mean that Christian ethics claims to discuss the origin of the whole problem of ethics, and thus professes to be a critique of all ethics simply as ethics. [Bonhoeffer, Ethics, Touchstone Edition, 1995, p. 21.]

Bonhoeffer’s rather bold response to Dostojevskij and Lacan is that they have both misunderstood what ethics is all about, or to put it in other words, that they are asking the wrong question. It is a critique against their ethics as ethics. Bonhoeffer’s claim is that man at his origin only knew one thing, namely God, and that the ethical division between good and evil is a clear indication that human beings no longer knows their origin. In knowing God, he says, mankind knew all things in God and God in all things, but this knowledge was lost. Hence the knowledge of good and evil reveals that we experience life apart from God, outside God. This means, Bonhoeffer writes, that

[Man] knows only himself and no longer knows God at all; for he can know God only if he knows only God. The knowledge of good and evil is therefore separation from God. Only against God can man know good and evil. But man cannot be rid of his origin. Instead of knowing himself in the origin of God, he must now know himself as an origin [and] he therefore conceives himself to be the origin of good and evil. [Ibid., p. 22]

I believe that this turn away from God can be seen throughout history but never has it been more clearly articulated than in the individualistic anthropocentrism of the modern era, which echoed the ancient philosopher Protagoras’ famous saying that ‘man is the measure of all things’. By this critique of modernity I do not mean to say that we should ignore it all together, that would be to totally miss the mark. Rather I believe that we need to re-imagine modernity, and subsequently post-modernity, in light of a narrative hermeneutical reading of the biblical scriptures. In regards to ethics this ultimately means that we look to Christ, who is the cornerstone of the house of God and a representation for what it means to be truly human.

From Bonhoeffer’s point of view, true humanity is to know only God; to know all things in God and God in all things. This perspective is present throughout the biblical scriptures but it reaches a new dimension in the figure of Christ, ‘who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness’ [Phil 2.6-7]. By forsaking heaven, Christ emptied himself for the sake of the world, but although he was born in human likeness he did not renounce to know all things in God and God in all things. Thus his life, death and resurrection unveils what it means to live a truly human life.

Is everything permitted? Yes, but this conclusion demands that we have considered the question from within the inner life of the body of Christ. Hence I am not saying that Christian ethics is nihilistic, rather my claim is that if we know all things in God and God in all things, then we desire nothing else than to follow Christ. That is not to say that ethical reflection is not necessary but it is no longer a choice between good and evil, rather we ask what it means to ‘let the same mind be in us that was in Christ Jesus’ [Phil 2.5].

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To ask whether God is necessary is in various forms a very common question. It is also a deeply revealing question since the answers we offer unveils something of what our ultimate concern is – our ultimate concern is deeply connected to the reason for asking the question in the first place – and thus the nature of our faith. It could therefore be said that our answers to some extent defines the question since we cannot speak of our ultimate concern without at least implicitly also speak about God. Some might object to this claim by saying that it is possible for an atheist to speak of ultimate concern without God, but my response would simply be that a world unchained from God is a world without ultimate concern. The fact that many would contest this statement is just a clear indication that modern atheism, theoretically speaking, should be described as a misdirected theology rather than the result of scientific achievements or sophisticated reasoning.

I believe that the understanding of God as a necessary being always moves us towards an idolatrous faith situated within systems of thought created by man. The fundamental problem is thus that the categories of thought are too narrow to contain what one attempts to talk about. I would further argue that to assume that God is necessary not simply diminishes God but also that such believes are potentially dangerous and oppressive. God is not to be thought of as a necessary being that we weave into our beliefs of existence in order to cover the gaps of our understandings. Rather than thinking of God as a ‘deus ex machina’ we should acknowledge that God is the Crucified One who forsook heaven to perform the ultimate kenotic move for the sake of the world. Theology should therefore begin in the receiving of the broken body of the Crucified since this practice acknowledges the brokenness of humanity while it allows for God to be God and our ultimate concern to be shaped by the apocalyptic event of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

If our theology is a result of the conviction that God is necessary, then God is necessarily confined by our reason since our reason is what determines what is necessary. Unfortunately, this way of reasoning is all too common because modernistic theology has bought into the lie that our epistemology must be rooted in our own, individual existence. The modern quest for self-certainty resulted in an anthropocentric worldview that expelled faith from its rightful place and considered it to be either distinct from reason (atheism) or the result of reason (conservative and liberal Christianity). The truth is that everything we consider to be reasonable essentially is the result of faith. Christian theology should therefore be understood as faith seeking understanding, not understanding seeking faith, and at a fundamental level the humbling task of the theologian is therefore to make sense of that which God has revealed in order for it to guide our understanding of the world and our actions in it.

Is God necessary? I initially remarked that our answer to this question to some extent defines the question and in light of what I have said in this post I therefore feel compelled to say no, God is not necessary. That is not to say that God is not, rather that the question itself is corrupt since it is spelled out from an anthropocentric perspective.

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In my previous post I suggested that theology starts with the receiving of the broken body of the Crucified and that the unity of the Church does not ultimately depend on specific doctrines. Rather, I claimed, the unity of the Church is a unity in Christ and it is held together by him. Throughout the post I therefore criticized all manmade structures that aims to control people in order to keep the Church together since such structures ultimately attempts to domesticate Christ by assuming his place.

Is not then my belief that theology starts with the receiving of the body of the Crucified simply another idolatrous structure that attempts to confine Christ – the God-man – within itself? This question might seem reasonable since it would be foolish to criticise others only to repeat their mistake, but my claim is that this particular question only appears to be fitting when it is understood from within such manmade structures that I am criticising.

My belief is that the good news of the Christian faith proclaims the end of all structures that attempts to domesticate God. Rather than understanding God as part of our own particular narrative we are called to embrace that we are part of God’s universal narrative that aims to reconcile all things in heaven and on earth. Hence by receiving the body of the Crucified we become parts of a narrative and an identity that transcends our own particularity and creates the possibility for many to become one. The ultimate concern of the Christian faith is therefore not to comprehend God but to live in accordance with God’s promises, which ultimately was unveiled by the resurrected Christ – the first fruit of the new creation.

Consider Abraham. He is not called the father of faith simply because he obediently walked up Mount Moriah in order to sacrifice Isaac as a respons to God’s command, but as Kierkegaard pointed out, because he believed that he would get him back. Abraham’s ultimate concern was God’s promised future, which was tied to the life of his son. Hence belief in God’s promised future required for Abraham to believe that his son would not be taken away.

We cannot rationally comprehend God from our human perspectives but we can allow for our lives to be transformed by the receiving of Christ’s broken body and thus by participating in the coming future that God promised by raising Christ from the dead. Given that the future of the risen Christ is the universal reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth we can therefore conclude that the object of the Christian faith is not doctrinal but relational, and for this reason that love is the fulfilment of the law rather than submission to specific beliefs.

To be clear, the aim of this argument has not been to say that the Church’s doctrines are not important, rather I have explored this subject for the purpose of articulating my understanding of where I believe that theology should begin. I will continue this pursuit in my next post in which I will discuss the relationship between faith and knowledge.

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In the book God as the Mystery of the World Eberhard Jüngel writes that the real definition of the word ‘God’ is ‘the Crucified One’. I affirm the validity of this statement and I believe that what we can say about God must be worked out from this foundation since no one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known. We should therefore not begin our theological reasoning from abstract, onto-theological principles; rather the doing of theology begins with the communal receiving of Christ’s broken body. Hence, the unity of the Church does not depend on the individual conformity to specific doctrines. The unity of the Church is a unity in Christ and it is held together by him. Any attempt to create structures in order to keep people submissive to specific doctrines is therefore equivalent to the building of the tower of Babel since it replaces the true God with an idol made by man.

While I believe that theology is a communal activity that must start with the receiving of Christ’s broken body I also acknowledge that the death of Christ must be interpreted in the light that his resurrection sheds on this event. Without the resurrection the crucifixion of Christ is meaningless and our faith is in vain, and without the crucifixion the resurrection of the Crucified One could simply not have happened. To receive the broken body of Christ is consequently an acknowledgment of the hope for a universal reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth since this is the eschatological vision that the apocalyptic resurrection of the Crucified One unveils.

The fact that the broken body of Christ is given to us also tells us that we are invited to participate in this eschatological process, which was inaugurated by his resurrection. This invitation is at the outset an invitation to die with Christ. For this reason Paul wrote in Romans chapter 6

But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

From this follows that a life in faith means to live a life in faithfulness to the universal telos of the risen Christ. When you die with Christ you die away from sin and death and you are raised into a new life of truth, beauty and reconciliation in Christ. This is what it truly means to be alive. This is what it means to be truly human. The kingdom of heaven is thus available here and now and it is a kingdom that is fundamentally different than the kingdoms of this world. Hence we should not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds, so that we may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

To conclude this post I would like to say that my argument affirms that our theology should be a result of our faith, which is a gift from God that we receive as we take part in the body of the Crucified. Hence our belonging within the sanctorum communio is not predicated on specific doctrines or worldly authorities but on the grace of God who sent his beloved Son to the world in order to redeem and reconcile all things in heaven and on earth. I would further claim that this belief opens up for an understanding of the Church that allows for God not to be replaced by worldly and idolatrous structures. God is thus suitably allowed to be God.